[New-Poetry] Americanism and Americanization: A Critical History of Domestic and Global

[Anny Ballardini]

>From: Elteren.M.C.M. van [mailto:Mel.vanElteren at uvt.nl] 
>Sent: dinsdag 22 augustus 2006 14:44

Americanism and Americanization: A Critical History of Domestic and Global
Influence

Mel van Elteren


Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2006
256 pp. $35 - £24.50 soft cover (7 x 10)
Notes, bibliography, index
ISBN 0-7864-2785-X 


Description
With the current state of foreign affairs, the terms "Americanism" and
"Americanization" sometimes take on an unexpected - and an unflattering -
connotation. Americanism essentially involves values, beliefs, ideals, goods
and practices in local settings outside the United States that are in some
way related or attributed to American influence. While the validity of this
influence may be under scrutiny, it requires a detailed historical - and
sometimes cultural - analysis to understand all the dynamics and
implications of Americanization. A variety of factors contribute to its
influence, including the preoccupation and reception of the relevant culture
itself. For instance, many European countries have at times demonstrated a
preoccupation with all things American which was not necessarily swayed by
any action of America itself. The overall actualization of Americanization,
however, encompasses a number of societal dimensions, including power
differentials in the exchanges concerned.

Informed by a history of relevant developments on both sides of the Atlantic
since the early nineteenth century, this volume presents an in-depth
critical analysis of the Americanization process. Beginning with a survey of
early European preoccupations with things American, the book goes on to
discuss European concerns regarding American influence after World War II.
The work then looks at Americanism and its influence within the United
States itself, especially regarding developments during the New Deal and
beyond. The primary goal of the analysis is the construction of an
interpretive framework, allowing for a more balanced approach to the study
of Americanism abroad. Written from a critical, social-emancipatory
perspective, the author's approach blends economic, military, social,
political, cultural and psychological dimensions as well as an examination
of the ways in which these areas interact. Finally, Americanism is examined
as part of a U.S.-style corporate globalization at the turn of the
twenty-first century. 

Contents 
The first two chapters offer an historical overview of the usages of the
terms "Americanism" and "Americanization" in Europe (the major locus of
initial interest in American influences abroad) against the background of
diverse images of America. The first chapter addresses the origins of the
preoccupation with "Americanization" in the context of political and
philosophical debates on Euro-American exchanges, beginning in Britain in
the 1830s and then turning towards France and Germany as the other two main
sites of contestation of American influence since the 1850s. It considers
not only the discourses of conservative intellectuals and politicians, but
also those of businessmen, trade union leaders and other working-class
leaders, political liberals, social radicals, and ordinary people until the
interwar years. The second chapter outlines the debates on Americanization
in Western Europe after World War II, which leads to a schematic overview of
the major discourses at the turn of twenty-first century. In addition, this
chapter throws light on the parallels between the various discourses of
cultural Americanization - historically the predominant interest of foreign
elites - and different visions on mass/popular culture in Europe and other
parts of the world within the European orbit. 
The next two chapters take a closer look at the American scene and chart the
various usages of the terms "Americanism" and "Americanization" in American
history. Chapter three traces the exclusionary political meanings of
Americanism in the mid-nineteenth century and examines the Americanization
movement with regard to the "new immigrants" from the late 1890s until the
1920s, as well as the critiques of its ideals of Americanism by adherents of
ethnic pluralism. It further covers the forced assimilation campaigns
regarding Native Americans from the late 1880s until the early 1930s, and
the Americanization programs specifically aimed at Mexican immigrants.
Finally, this chapter scrutinizes the appropriations of Americanism among
labor and the left in the work setting and in politics prior to the New Deal
era. Chapter four analyzes first the various interpretations of Americanism
and Americanization within the New Deal context and Popular Front culture
until World War II. Secondly, it highlights the crucial role of Americanism
regarding U.S. citizenship as a political issue at the peak of the Cold War.
Then the focus shifts to the contestations of Americanism during the 1960s
and after, when various new social movements emerged, along with
multiculturalism and its attendant identity politics. A major point of
interest are the political struggles revolving around preferred meanings of
Americanism and Americanization in relation to questions of immigration
(regarding the influx from Latin America in particular) against the backdrop
of a new conservative Americanism that emerged in the 1980s. Finally,
attention is paid to the exclusionist Americanism vis-à-vis Arabs and
Muslims, and Americans of Arabic descent, as well as political dissidents of
various stripes in the "war on terror" after 9/11. The chapter ends with a
section about the more specific phrase "Americanization of the South" (and a
related one: "Southernization of America") that came in use during the
second half of the twentieth century.        
Historically informed by this wide-ranging overview, chapter five presents a
systematic approach of the subject matter, and defines the key terms more
precisely. It examines the major approaches that are currently in vogue and
indicates the problematic sides of each. The latter discussion is continued
in the next chapter, where the pitfalls of an extreme social constructionism
are explained and the necessity is argued of partly undoing the
deconstructions of Americanization that have taken place in the past few
decades. More generally, this means recapturing the critical elements in the
notion of Americanization that have gotten lost in the approaches at issue
here. Thus chapter six lays the foundations of an interpretive framework
that is expected to be more helpful in comprehending processes of
Americanization than the paradigms that are prevalent today.
Chapter seven elaborates the theoretical framework for analyzing
Americanization abroad, and conceptualizes the processes concerned in terms
of power relations, distinguishing various units of analysis and charting
the major avenues through which American influences are conveyed abroad,
introduced into foreign contexts, and acted upon by local recipients. It
concentrates on the export side of Americanization, and historicizes the
framework by offering a periodization of American influence abroad. Chapter
eight completes the framework by going into more conceptual detail regarding
the reception of American influence. It also considers possible functions
and effects of Americanization when trying to make assessments of specific
cases.    
The final chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the intertwinement of
Americanization and corporate globalization at the turn of the twenty-first
century. First it examines current theorizing on globalization, which is
characterized by an overriding tendency to reject the whole notion of
Americanization. It is argued that these theorists have thrown the
proverbial baby out with the bath water, namely an interest in America's
persisting strong influence in many domains globally. Yet, it is also
recognized that one has to move beyond a state-centrist approach in order to
adequately grasp the significantly increased influence of transnational
corporations over the past few decades. Therefore next this chapter explores
the major ways in which transnational corporations - in relation to
U.S.-dominated, international governance - spread capitalist modernity
worldwide. An attempt is made to explain how U.S. business leaders and
affiliated political power-holders still manage to set the agenda of much of
the global economy and why many of their foreign counterparts have adopted
similar neoliberal policies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the
historical contingency of the American face of much of corporate
globalization and then also looks at possible transformations by a
transnational coalition of countervailing powers.

About the Author
Mel van Elteren is an associate professor of social sciences at Tilburg
University, The Netherlands. He is an editorial board member of the Journal
of American Culture, Journal of Popular Culture and Popular Music and
Society. He has published extensively on a wide variety of topics regarding
theory and history of the social sciences, cultural sociology, social
history and American studies.

_______________________________________________
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! 
Friedrich Nietzsche 
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